Since 1968 the Academy Foundation, the educational and preservation wing of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, has distributed through its Institutional Grants Program over 400 grants to a variety of film-related nonprofit organizations, schools and colleges.  As an annual program, the Institutional Grants Program reflects one of the Academy’s fundamental purposes – to foster educational activities between the public and the film industry, and to encourage an appreciation of the motion picture as an art form and a vocation.

In recent years, grants have been made to the AFI for the Directing Workshop for Women; to Cornell Cinema (Ithaca, NY) for visiting artists within a screening series; to Streetlights (Los Angeles) for a production assistant training and placement program; to FilmAid for their African screening program; and to IFP for their “Rough Cut” Film Lab mentoring program.  Grants are not given to individuals, although the Academy supports college-based internship programs that enable gifted students to work with prominent filmmakers.  Some institutional grant recipients include the University of North Carolina’s summer “Hollywood” internship program, California Institute of the Arts, University of Southern California and Yale University.

Please note that under this program funds are not awarded directly to individuals engaged in the performing arts, to cover the expenses of developing scripts, producing films or funding educational expenses of any kind.

In 2008 the Institutional Grants Program distributed $500,000 to 58 institutions.  Typical funding ranges from $5,000 to $15,000 per institution.  More details about which organizations received funding in 2008 (or any other previous year) are available here. 

An application form and proposal must be submitted by all organizations wishing to be considered for funding.  Guidelines and instructions in the application packet describe what a typical grant proposal should look like. 

Proposed programs should take place between May 1 of the grant year and April 30 of the following year.  Depending on circumstances, some variance of the grant year may be allowed.

Proposals must be received no later than January 15, 2009.  All applicants will be notified as to the status of their proposals in April and grants will be distributed to successful applicants shortly thereafter.